Co Chung Menu

Co Chung sits in the moderate band for Singapore Vietnamese food: clearly above the Joo Chiat shophouse spots, well below the hotel restaurants. The menu is built on a $12.50 anchor. Beef pho, Hue spicy noodle soup, crab vermicelli soup, broken rice and several banh mi all land within a dollar of it, which makes ordering simple: pick the dish you want, the price barely moves.

A realistic budget: $12.50 for a main, $8.50 for shared crispy rolls, $6.80 for a coconut coffee, about $28 per person for a proper three-part meal. A quick lunch of pho alone is $12.50 plus whatever you drink. Prices below come from the restaurant’s own site, a 2025 menu price guide and recent diner reviews, and they are flagged where reports differ.

Pho is the reason Co Chung exists, and the soup menu covers the north-to-south range. The beef pho is the headline: rich broth, thick tender beef slices, served with the noodles so you pour the broth over at the table. The Hue spicy pork and beef noodle soup brings the central-Vietnam heat. And the menu goes beyond pho into bun cha, crab vermicelli and beef stew.

The bun cha price varies slightly between sources ($12.80 in a food blog review, $12.96 in the price guide), so expect something in that band. Everything else on the soup board is consistently reported. If the menu feels wide, that is the point: the restaurant’s own site says its dishes come from all regions of Vietnam, north, central and south.

The banh mi lineup is one of the widest in Singapore, and the pricing is unusually flat: six variants at exactly $10.96, with the grilled pork and the sauteed beef sitting just outside the band. The baguette is the make-or-break, and reviewers describe it as light and soft with generous fillings, though one noted the crust could be crisper.

My pick is the grilled pork at $9.96: it is the cheapest on the board and the filling that reviewers praise most, well marinated, tender, with the homemade mayonnaise and pate doing the heavy lifting. At under ten dollars it is also the best-value lunch at either outlet.

Com tam, Vietnamese broken rice, is the southern comfort plate: fractured rice grains with charcoal-grilled pork, a sunny-side-up egg, pickled vegetables, and Co Chung’s special condensed fish sauce. The version here adds nem nuong, the grilled pork sausage, which pushes it beyond the standard hawker-centre broken rice.

At $12.50 it matches the pho on price, so the choice between them is purely about mood: soup or rice plate. The broken rice is the heartier order, and the grilled pork is the same well-marinated meat that anchors the banh mi, so you already know it is good.

The starters run from the $3.20 fresh spring rolls, the cheapest thing on the entire menu, up to the $9.50 salads and the famous $8.50 crispy rolls. This is the section for the table to share while the pho arrives.

The banh xeo and banh beo appear on the official site without widely reported prices, so expect starter-band pricing in the $8 to $12 range. The baby clams with rice cracker at $9.50 is the sleeper hit of this section: tender clams, crispy cracker, lemongrass and chilli, built for sharing.

Above the $12.50 anchor sit the signatures, the dishes that justify a special trip. The cha ca la vong is the headliner: a Hanoi classic of turmeric-marinated catfish grilled over charcoal, served sizzling with vermicelli, dill, peanuts and shrimp paste. The pho beef revolution at $23.90 is the deluxe pho for when one kind of beef is not enough. And the grilled beef in betel leaf is the smoky, aromatic barbecue dish that converts sceptics.

The bun cha deserves its fame beyond the price: it is the Hanoi dish Anthony Bourdain ate with Barack Obama, and Co Chung’s version, grilled pork belly and meatballs in fish sauce with green papaya pickle, is the real thing. If you only splurge on one dish, make it the cha ca la vong at $19.96. It is the hardest dish on this menu to find done well elsewhere in Singapore.

Vietnamese coffee is non-negotiable at a restaurant like this, and Co Chung does the full range. The milk coffee and the coconut coffee both run $6.80, and the egg coffee, the Hanoi specialty of whipped egg yolk over strong coffee, is the one to try if you have never had it. Rich, dessert-like, and nothing like a latte.

The coconut coffee at $6.80 is the crowd favourite for hot afternoons: the coconut takes the edge off the robusta bitterness without drowning it. The milk coffee is the classic. Either way, budget $6.80 and thank yourself later.

Two outlets, both central, both open 11am to 10pm every day. The Plaza Singapura branch is the mall one, B2 food level, convenient but often crowded with queues at peak hours. The Boat Quay branch at Lor Telok is the shophouse one, closer to the original feel.

Practical notes: the restaurant’s own site says it does not take reservations for the Plaza Singapura outlet, so go early, around 11:30am, if you want to skip the queue. Popular dishes sell out, which regulars mention as a real thing, not marketing. Phone: +65 8876 8137. Delivery runs through Grab and other partners via the official site.